All the Precious Things
by Kay Willow
Summary: At the end of KH2, a few Dusks managed to snatch precious hearts from the air as Kingdom Hearts died above them. This is a Dusk's story.


**.all the precious things.**

.

Something is happening to the World That Never Was. He thinks, this can't happen. Not now. I have everything I've ever wanted. He tries to hurry away from the shaking towers and the collapsing structures in the sky. He hides under a bridge and huddles in a little ball, hiding his treasure from sight.

_Who comes?_ spoke a voice.

He starts a bit, slides back, and then forward again when he sees who it is. A Sorcerer, tall and slender, her body broken but her eyes still bright and her words still soft. Poor thing, he thinks, which is not something he's ever thought about one of the graceful, brutal servants of the Superior Himself before. Broken she's no better than a Creeper.

_A Dusk?_ she says, surprised. One of her long arms twists, flails. She doesn't seem to notice. _What is that you have there?_

What if she takes it? What if she wants it for her own? Her kind take everything good. He hovers nervously for a moment, but the conditioning is too great. He's always obeyed the Sorcerers. They are the Superior's Word. Slowly, he shows her his treasure, caught between his thumb and his bound fingers.

It's so amazing, to look into it and see it shimmer, to see the strange reflections caught within its glow. It might have been just fanciful thinking, but he imagines that if he looks hard enough, he will be able to see himself, the way he thinks he used to be, within the depths of the soft glow of this heart.

His heart, now.

The Sorcerer looks at the heart, and then at him; she looks at the heart, and says, _You must escape here. The City is dying again._

_Are the others going?_ he asks, uncertain. He isn't supposed to go anywhere without express orders from a higher-ranking Nobody.

_If they aren't, they're fools,_ she says. _Take that and leave. If it brings you happiness, you are better off than any of the others._ She waves one long arm and a dark corridor wells up in the wall beside her.

_But you need help._ He shifts in place, nervous, looking at the enormous eyebeam that has fallen and pinned her to the ground, perhaps impaled her. She is not struggling. _Perhaps..._

_Go._

He does, clutching his heart and wondering if this is fear.

.

The world he finally dares to pause on is in the world of light; he can feel it in the air, that sense of difference, of brightness everywhere. Of life. He sidles over to a rock and perches on it and allows himself to breathe, to pause and admire his heart.

It's so at home here, he can't help thinking. This world suits it. Maybe, in time, it will suit him.

But he tilts his head, pondering the soft, pulsing radiance of it. Is this... it? Does he have a heart now, does it affect him? Or is he just holding a heart?

_What do I do with it?_ he asks of no one. He tries to bend it, maybe wrap it around himself, but it is rather rigid. He hugs it close to his chest, hoping it will just melt into him maybe, or pass through his silver shell, but it doesn't. It doesn't make him feel any warmer or softer either.

He thinks then that maybe he should eat it -- then it would be inside him, right, and then it could... disseminate into his body, fill him the way the dead thing thumping in his chest doesn't. But he looks at it and he can't _stand_ that idea. No no. He can't eat his heart. It's so lovely, so serene. So right as it is.

Besides, if he is wrong, he will have nothing.

(He wishes the Numbered were here to tell him what to do.)

He decides that maybe he's just hungry. He can't tell, the emptiness of a Nobody's existence consuming any lesser hungers -- meals are always at regular and predetermined hours. The Numbered are good at making certain that their followers do not starve. He'll have to decide his own mealtime from now on. Maybe the hours will pass noticeably on this world, and he can say, at dawn and at dusk, he'll eat.

With that decided, he bounds to his feet again, tucking his heart into the crook of one arm, and slides over to the stream nearby.

On the first try, he spears a fish. It's a little trickier than killing a human.

.

He's sleeping when she finds him, that's why he doesn't hear her singing. He opens his eyes to a wide-eyed human woman, a waterfall of honey hair and wide blue eyes, and for a moment he thinks of someone else.

"My," she says, her voice somewhere between unsure and admiring. That voice is like none other. "Is that a heart you have?"

Then he remembers, his treasure, _what if she takes it?_ What if she tells people he's here?

He clambers up, half-slashing at her with bound claws, and she stumbles back, dropping her basket of flowers. He darts away, stretching his limbs to escape faster, and tries to hide the heart behind his thin body.

Foolish, foolish Dusk. It's only been a few days and he's still waiting to see if one of the Numbered will contact him, or a Sorcerer, even one of the other servants. If he leaves, they won't know where he is, but if he doesn't....

"Wait!" she cries, and stands tall. The folds of her cloak settle around her slender form and for a moment he can feel her, the way he can't feel anything else, can only remember feeling; she feels warm, and soft, and strong. Her heart is clear.

The heart in his arms reacts to her, swelling somehow as if in echo of her grace. He looks down at it, curious, and then back at her. Why...?

She says, gently, "My name is Aurora. Why have you come here?"

Then he thinks, maybe the Sorcerer didn't send him here. Maybe she only opened a corridor. Maybe, maybe the heart brought him here.

_You're a Princess of Heart,_ he tells her, testing. She gasps a little, a hand to her throat, and then she nods. She is less startled, he thinks, than simply unprepared. Indeed, her features relax, and she straightens, looking almost delighted.

_Then... can you help me? I think my heart is broken,_ he says, and holds it out to her.

.

She brings him as close to civilization as he can bear to go, before being nervous and shying away. He can't do it, can't go any closer. He has never himself fought the keyblade hero; the ones who did never came back. But he knows that humans don't like Nobodies, that they are different, that they have hearts and cannot be bothered to spare caring for lesser beings.

"My people will be kind to you," Aurora says.

_They will try to hit me with things,_ he counters. _They will scream and hide their children._ Which is just unnecessary. He knows how to treat children. He has served XIII and guarded the witch, and once, he almost recalls playing with young human things whose names he remembers better than his own.

So he waits, dancing to himself nervously and skittering to hide at small noises. She did not take his heart, so he clutches it possessively and hopes, and hopes.

She returns with a sheaf of paper, a quill pen and a vial of ink. She kneels on the ground, heedless of the pool of her skirt against the dirt ground, and sets the materials on the ornate bench before her. He twists near to spy over her shoulder as she dips the quill.

_What are you writing?_ he wants to know.

"I can send a letter to my fairy godmothers," she says, not looking up from the paper. Her writing is elegant and sweepingly precise, a beautiful calligraphy. He flexes his bound fingers self-consciously. "They are wiser in the ways of the heart than I am. One of them must know how to help you."

Calligraphy tells his story in careful prose. Hello to my dear fairy godmothers, she reads aloud for him when it is done. I know that it has not been long since my last letter, but I have an unusual visitor. He calls himself a Dusk, and he brought me a heart in his own two hands, saying that he does not know how to make it work again, how to make it one with him again. I know that you will have for him the same wisdom and kindness that you shared with me. I look forward to your response. Your beloved, Briar Rose.

The folded letter flutters with a life of its own, flapping its wings and rising on the breeze. He chases after it avidly until it rises above his head, and then he only watches, and waits for it to return with his hope.

.

Aurora looks grave when he next sees her. _What is it?_ he asks, alarmed.

She says, "Flora and Fauna and Merryweather showed the letter to a scholar in these matters. His response is..."

Yen Sid is a name known to him. That man and his kind spent a year debating what Nobodies are; he does not know what their conclusion was, but he knows that Nobodies of higher rank, not only the Numbered but all of their attendants, grow fierce and dangerous when they hear that name. He is about to learn why.

"Can you read?" she says gently, and of course he can read, although he cannot write with these hands. But she doesn't want to speak the words of the letter. They would stain her fair voice.

**...a monster...  
...not to be trusted...  
...unfeeling and predatory, dangerous...  
...like as not has torn that heart from an innocent's chest...  
...drive it away, far away, before its kin follow it and finish the job...**

He is shocked and a little confused by these words. Who has Yen Sid met who gave off such an impression? VII, perhaps, in the heat of battle, or VIII deep within the knots of his own games. Some highly-concentrated group of attendants on a mission, Dragoons or Dancers... His shoulders sag.

"You didn't, did you?" Aurora says, watching him. Her features are composed. She believes she knows the answer. "This heart is yours?"

He clutches it tightly, and then relaxes his grip deliberately. It is his, now, after all. He tells her, _I didn't take this from any living thing. It fell from the sky for me._

"Do you want to know why I believe you?" she says gently, and he nods, numb. "If that heart had been stolen, it would never stay with you. There are always people who dwell deep within one's heart, and if that heart loses its way, those people appear as lights in the darkness to call to it. If that heart belonged to someone else, it would be impossible for you to chain it down."

The words reassure him, and he sways, more confident than before. _But your witches will not help me,_ he says. _What shall I do?_

"Tell me everything." She fetches an inkwell from the basket she brought with her. She is prepared. "I will write a new letter."

So he tells her, all about what he is, and what it means, and what he wants. He's never talked to anyone like this before, spoken freely about things that the others try and hide, the things they pretend cannot be real because these are things that belonged to the previous life.

.

This time, it is Aurora's godmothers who write back to him, in three inks and three hands; Aurora brings him the letter with a pleased smile, and again passes it to him to read. They are full of explanations and apologies for Yen Sid's earlier words, insisting that they showed him the letter only because he is more expert in the matter of Nobodies than they themselves. They had not known the response that he would send.

He isn't sure that means that now Yen Sid is convinced of his innocence, or that his opinion has changed. He does wonder a little how the scholar reacted to the story of a mere Dusk. Maybe he was furious at being challenged. Maybe he was humbled at being wrong.

It's not important anymore, though. What's important is his heart -- which seems, perhaps, like it might be a lost cause.

_I thought your fairy godmothers were wise,_ he says plaintively.

Aurora touches his thin shoulder with a gentle hand and it's hard not to jerk away. He might never get used to the idea of someone willing to touch him, he suspects. She reassures him, "Not everyone is wise in every way. They may be wise in matters of magic and curses, but less so in matters of the heart." Her lips quirk. "And then, there are matters of the heart... and matters of the _heart_."

He likes the way she says that, like there is a significance to his situation and his heart that normal people cannot understand. He brushes his hand over the pocket where he keeps his heart -- Aurora sewed him a hooded vest, to keep him warm, she says. He likes to put the hood down and pretend that he's one of the Numbered.

_But then,_ he wonders, _who is wise in this matter, who can give me advice?_

"Well," Aurora says, looking at the letter again. "Wouldn't your superiors know, if anyone?" She holds it out to him, and indicates the last sentence.

**If he's telling the truth, and that's what a Nobody really is,** writes a blue ink, **then there's a chance his commanders might have ended up in the Underworld.**

The Underworld...

.

He finds that, as excited as he is to make his heart his own, he is reluctant to leave. Maybe it's anxiety. Maybe it's security.

Maybe it's sadness.

Aurora comes to see him, and with her she brings her husband; he hovers behind her, watching with set jaw and dark, uncertain eyes. He wears a sword and he seems not to like it that Aurora kneels beside her strange guest.

"I do hope you'll come and visit me again," she says, pulling down his hood and tucking it neatly about his head. He keeps his mouth opening carefully zippered, so that she needn't be afraid, and so that her prince needn't be alarmed. "You're welcome here, if you don't find what you're looking for."

_I have to find it,_ he said, to her and no other. _If I don't, I have no heart, and I am nothing but a shell. A monster._

That, at least, he had learned from this whole incident. There is no place in civilized worlds for things like him. The fear that his kind have generated is too great to overcome, even with the aid of those gentle spirits who can be brought to understand. Even the word of a Princess of Heart would not have been enough to keep the wizard Yen Sid from killing him. Even the heart, which pulses delicately even now, would have meant nothing to him -- perhaps would even have made him angrier.

Humans become so frightened, when that which is not like them seeks to become more like them. Their identities are so fragile.

"I don't believe it." Aurora smiles at him. "A monster can never be redeemed. There is something good in you. Will you tell me your name?"

He tries, but he finds that he does not remember. After a nervous moment, he opens a dark corridor and darts through, leaving without another word.

.

The Olympus Coliseum is so bright and hot that he thinks he may have come to the wrong place. Surely this is not where the Numbered reside. They seek out the dark and the cold, where they blend in with their black coats and their sluggish blood. There are many people there, and he skirts around them, searching for where his people gather.

He realizes, after the heat of the sun has grown familiar, that there _is_ darkness beneath the surface of this world -- a deep and cold chasm, seething, that seems to be entwined with the dark world itself.

_Pardon me,_ he asks the little red creature he finds there. It yelps and spins and stares at him with saucer eyes. _I am looking for others of my kind._

"Y- Y- Y- You're one of those Heartless, or, or Nobody fellas," it stutters, voice shrill and high.

His first reaction is irritation; of course he isn't one of _them,_ he's intelligent, isn't he? He's sleek and silver, isn't he? He's making conversation instead of groping irrationally for the beating red heart under that quivering red skin, isn't he?

_The latter,_ is all he says. _Are the Numbered here?_

The little creature relaxes slightly, scratching its head. "Ummm," he muses, "yeah, I guess. They're the guys that look like humans but aren't, right? The boss has been hanging out with them for a while. He's been trying to get more of 'em to play ping-pong!"

It only makes sense, of course, that they should gravitate to the master of this place; still, the one left behind is acutely aware that he does not belong here, that this is for those whose blood has all been let and turned to smoke. He has his heart, tucked away and hidden safely in his vest. He isn't willing to sacrifice that to speak to the dead. _Thank you,_ he says. _I will find them myself._

Then he slithers away.

.

It is Lexaeus that he sees first, and that is a pleasure for him; the big Nobody has always been open-minded, willing to listen, even if maybe a part of him believes Dusks to be lesser creatures, or not as intelligent, the way many other of the Numbered do. Surely V will have advice.

He has not been entirely sure that he believed that the Numbered would be here, or at least that they would stay here. He thinks perhaps that they are ephemeral, prone to fading away, as they do when they die. Perhaps they do go to the Underworld, he has thought, but there is a time limit on how long they can remain, stubbornly holding on not only to shell but to semblance of life. Then the weeks and days go by and they lose even that pretense, and are gone.

Yet if any of those who were lost over a year ago remain, this may be an afterlife indeed.

Of course, if any of those who were lost over a year ago remain, it would be V. He is the most solid of them, the biggest and strongest.

He begins to move out, to approach shyly, but then draws back suddenly as another shadow from the past appears -- IV, Vexen.

"What are you doing here?" IV says, irritated, "I have been looking for you."

"I am practicing for the Underdrome," V murmurs in a voice that carries, rumbling through the corridors. "As well as trying to avoid endless games of ping-pong."

"IX is _serenading_ him, he's distracted. I need your help. There is a large cast-iron table that I want--"

V says, to no one in particular, "Why is it that whenever people seek me out, it is because they have large objects they need moved?"

"Better that they seek you out at all than they ignore you as worthless," IV retorts, and it seems that he cannot resist adding, "like that _wretch,_ VIII."

"Do not speak to me of Axel. I bear no grudge against him and I have no interest in sharing your venom..."

"Then you may be the only one who does not!"

From the rise in IV's voice, they will be here a while. Their watcher leaves without a word.

.

It turns out that IV is correct. There is still a sense of community among the Numbered, some mutual understanding or reluctance to let go that binds them together. They do seek out one another's company; rarely alone, always in twos or threes.

Except for one, and yet it seems that they favor the topic of that one in even the most innocent conversations.

Whether it is XII or IV who hisses, _"Axel."_

Whether it is the distant mockery of II or X who chuckles, "Axel."

Whether it is I or XI who muses with distant menace, "Axel..."

He tries to approach them, but he is uncomfortable being around so many of them at once. VIII will be alone. They shun him; and after all, the one who might be by VIII's side is not here.

So he turns his thoughts toward the flame, that shadow like a flickering candle that burns into the fabric of the darkness, deep and compelling, and that draws him to the Flurry of Dancing Flames. He finds VIII seated upon the sands of a dark river, gazing out across the water with unseeing eyes. He has scarcely approached when that bright green gaze is focused on him instead.

_M, my liege,_ he says dumbly. It feels like it has been forever since one of the Numbered looked upon him. He feels... strange. Humbled. So easily he is a mere Dusk again.

"I don't have any orders to give you," VIII says, sounding bored.

The fire-wielder begins to turn back to contemplation, as if there have been others before, others who have come like this visitor, and that fills him with a sense of desperate urgency. No, no, he is not like the others, he is different-- he has something that make him different.

_Wait, please. This one desires no orders. I only ask for-- for advice._ He fumbles with his awkward hands for the pocket flap where he stores his heart. VIII turns to watch him again with a flicker of curiosity as he pulls it from his vest.

He holds it out, and VIII stares at it, long and hard, but there is no light in his eyes, no wonder. The heart reflects back no shimmers of bright colors. _Advise me,_ he pleads of the greater Nobody. _Why does it not work for me?_

Axel says, so softly, so almost gently, "Little fool. That heart isn't yours."

And the world crashes down.

.

He doesn't know what to do then, so he doesn't do anything. He folds himself up, wrapping long arms around his legs, and sits on the beach a short way apart from VIII. There seems no further point in exploring, or in hoping, or doing much of anything. The gentle and rhythmic wash of the waves makes him think that he can lose all this, forget about that which anguishes him. If he cared to let it, it would wash him away as well, but he has always known that only one kind of Nobody can paradoxically both care and not care enough about life to sacrifice it. He is here because death is not strong enough for him.

So he sits, and listens to the soothing sound of the waves. The heart that he believed in so wholly lies in the sand where he dropped it, between them. He has deliberately shied away from the thing that burned him. It doesn't matter anymore.

There is, too, no point to the vest that Aurora gave him to carry it, in the hopes that he would someday become a person, a human person, and now he knows that that will never be true.

In a fit of frustration, many hours later, he struggles loose of the thing, pulling it over his head. He can't quite bring himself to slice it off, and so it survives with only a few impatient tears when he places his hands carelessly. He throws it into the water, and something, at least, is pulled away by the dark and greedy tide, out into oblivion from whence no one returns.

He settles back onto the beach, huddling tight. VIII is watching him. He knows, and a part of him would likely wonder what the Numbered was thinking, but he does not believe it could be anything worth knowing. So he keeps to himself, and so does the Assassin.

.

VIII nudges him with the toe of his boot, waking him from fitful sleep.

"Hey," the Numbered says. "You can't just leave that there." And, when he receives only a blank stare from eyes set deep within the suit, he elaborates, "The _heart._ You can't just leave it lying there."

He looks at it, crossly, hatefully, and scrambles over to where it lies. It is bothering a Numbered and so it must be disposed of. He starts digging with his long bound fingers, shoveling the sand aside in great handfuls. He's done with it, done with hearts, done with false hope and lies. Appropriate, perhaps, that he buries all those things. Let them rot in the cold ground.

_"Hey."_ The Numbered does not sound pleased. He looks up at the human-formed one, irritated. What more could VIII want from him? "Not like that. Cut it out, c'mere."

Curious now in spite of himself, he carefully removes the heart from the ground and dusts it off. Slow and tender, almost, before he realizes what he's doing. Then he jerks away quickly and slides over to where VIII is standing, offering it up entirely. The redhead waves a gloved hand curtly, almost like he's warding it away.

Rubbing the side of his nose, VIII says, "The truth is, that heart isn't yours. But... it's still here with you, right? It would've gone elsewhere if you didn't have some connection to it."

It is a curious echo of the words Aurora spoke to him; he stands straighter, clutching at the heart hopefully. Perhaps, perhaps...

"It doesn't belong to you, but I think you should look for whoever it does belong to," the Numbered tells him. "Whoever she is, she'll probably appreciate it."

_Will that..._ He feels pathetic, but he has to ask. _Will that help me?_

It seems to him that VIII's gaze becomes distant, and he looks out over the dark waters. As if he waits. "I think so," is all he says. "I think sometimes it doesn't matter if you don't have a heart. They can find you, you know. You might not even know it."

.

For a little while it feels wrong to leave VIII there, poised on the beach and waiting for someone that the Dusk fears may never come. He lingers for hours, or perhaps as much as a day, not daring to speak and quite ignored. The Numbered's servants come, swirl briefly around him, and they snigger behind their razorblade fingers at the timid little Dusk staring at their master from a short distance away. They don't understand, he thinks.

What does one say to one so many levels above oneself? There is no comparison of a Dusk to a Numbered. He believes firmly that even the emptiness that he has always felt is but a shadow of what a real person might feel, and a Numbered -- closest to being real, whole -- must feel it all the more acutely. Following orders is enough to content him, but it is not the same for those who look and sound and seem so human that they could almost bleed.

The servants come and go, before one finally deigns to acknowledge him. _Away, small cousin,_ urges an Assassin, spiraling in the air and nudging him. _Can't you see he is changed? Leave him to focus on his heart._

He looks, then; really looks, and he understands that VIII, too, is nursing a battered heart, in his way. Even if it is not visible, shimmering and pink and wondrous, he carries it somewhere with him.

_Tell him that it will be okay,_ he says, feeling for once as if he understands. _They're connected, after all. His heart will find him._

Then he shivers away, up and out from the dark realm. He blinks in the painful light of day, accustoming himself to it again, and he leaves, with only the faintest idea where he is going. He doesn't really understand, but it feels like he does, and that makes the blazing sunlight into something warm and friendly.

.

He decides that he must be starving and he stops to hunt down a small rabbit. It isn't until he has finished with his meal that he tilts his head to one side and wonders how to begin searching for the heart's true owner. His appearance will surely be terrifying to humans, and the Heartless are indistinguishable from one another. The heart -- he must hold it now, for Aurora's tenderly-knit sweater is long gone to the vagaries of the Styx -- is dormant and placid in his arms, giving no clue as to where it belongs.

There is no point in returning to Aurora's castle; even if he did, she has given him all the help that he can. Besides, he has promised himself that the next she knows of him, it will be in a letter, written by his own unbound hand, and signed with his name.

Perhaps he drifts a little from world to world. He remembers distinctly being in a world with fireworks lighting the sky, and another where plains stretched on into monotonous forever, and one where the majority of the population lives under the ocean. He doesn't know how to swim and for a despairing moment he thinks that if the one to whom his heart belongs is down there, he will never find her.

But he keeps traveling. If she is down there, then she is down there, but he cannot stop and he cannot mourn. It's too late to give up now. And he doesn't want to disappoint Aurora -- and he wants to show VIII that it can be done, and that he can do it too.

The quickest way to find one's destiny is to abandon oneself to it.

.

_Ah!_ he cries, and, _Ahh!_ she cries.

She is a higher-ranking servant than he is and so he falls to the ground immediately, prostrating himself and apologizing profusely. _My apologies-- I didn't see you. I only sought somewhere to rest from the rain--_

_It's not your fault either,_ she says. Her hem, trailing on the cement step where she sits, is purple; although he didn't get a good look at her before he dropped onto knees and elbows, he knows she is a Gambler, then. _Only a madman would announce his presence in an unknown territory. And mad is not in the job description._

Because she seems lenient, and because he has never met a Gambler who was yet a stickler for propriety, he decides that he has been allowed to stand, and he does so. She is perched on one of the steps to the old castle as if she has always been there, nonchalant.

_I have not seen another living Nobody since the city's fall,_ he marvels a little. It feels strange and heady to be with his own kind again. Such relief he hasn't felt since the moment in which the heart came to him, and knew joy.

_You were in the city, then. Brave for a Dusk._ He can hear the tease in her voice, and that -- although she has every reason to believe such a thing -- she means no slight to his kind for having less of an identity than she and hers. _To strike out on your own without permission from a higher rank._

He puffs out his chest a little, proud, and then allows himself to deflate. _A Sorcerer commanded me to go,_ he admits, and she laughs gently, and waves him to sit beside her and wait out the rain.

.

She admires his heart, although the great part of him is possessive and does not want her to see it. It's his, for him alone, not for strangers, and even though he knows that it is neither his to hoard nor to give, it feels personal, as though by seeing it she stares right through him. If only he still had Aurora's sweater, in which to hide it away...!

_It glows like the remnants newly escaped from deep within Heartless shapes,_ she murmurs, which he thinks is an oddly stirring image, like poetry or battle. _Are you sure you didn't take it from one of those stupid little monsters?_

_No! It fell from the sky on the night the city died,_ he protests. _You would know if you'd been there._

_I followed my lord's orders,_ she says, indignant. _I waited in the twilit town for the youth with the keyblade. I never found sign of him nor his friends. If I had been in the Dark City the only thing that would have been accomplished is my death. I prefer these odds._

But she is melancholy and says nothing further, and he thinks she may be thinking of what he is thinking of, that the ones who lose their masters always die... as mindless and irrational as the Heartless they have always sneered at. Her lord, the number X, shaped her being, and without him she is nothing.

In consolation, he lets her look at the heart for a little longer, holding it out slightly. Her shoulders, beneath the suit, soften as she looks upon it. It must have that affect on everyone.

_It is lovely,_ she says, her tone all but reluctant, and she reaches out for it.

Nervous, he snatches it back to his chest. _You can't have it. Get your own._

She tilts her head back to gaze at him from beneath her helmet, pale eyes the only hint of light in this dark midnight. She seems unoffended, although she notes dryly, _I won't take it from you, dear thing. Such a lack of trust!_

He feels silly now, and mostly to himself he notes, _Well, with such vast sleeves, who knows what you might stash away in there?_

She nods, like she agrees, and then flicks a card out from the depths of her raised sleeve. It hits him in the face and he is startled into laughter, although he cannot remember the last time he had cause to laugh.

.

They sleep in shifts, first him and then her, waiting out the ferocious storm that rages beyond the castle's gates. Isolated Heartless -- not the packs of wild hungry things of before, but single, confused creatures -- wander occasionally near the steps. Ordinarily perhaps they would have ignored these pitiful intruders, but by unspoken and mutual agreement they rise up to kill. He must protect his heart, and she sees in them what will become of her.

When the rain finally ends, it is still night, but the clouds have faded away and the stars can at last be seen.

_Look,_ she says. _That is my favorite constellation. It can be seen from Havoc's Divide, just on the horizon line. It could also be seen on the world of my Somebody's birth._

She extends her sleeve, and from within it stretches forward a single, needle-like finger to trace the invisible lines. Though unbound, her hand is no different than his.

He squints and he lifts his head to see beneath his suit and he tries, but he cannot make out the shape. He says to her, _Do you remember that person's life well?_

After a considering pause, the Gambler turns to him and nods. _Not perfectly. But well, I think, yes._

He hesitates. _Do you remember her name?_

There is a low sound, like a laugh, and then she rises to her feet. _Of course I remember her name. But what meaning do their names have for us?_

None, he supposes, but he almost wishes that they had names, they unworthy menials who struggled so hard for life that they lost who they were and became new. The Numbered, the ones who recreated themselves true, they are worthy of names-- but he? He cannot even remember who he once was.

_Come,_ she beckons. _We have been here a while. It is time for food._

He does.

.

He's surprised because _she_ is surprised at how he fends for himself.

_You do that so well,_ she says. _Was your Somebody a fisher, maybe?_

It hasn't occurred to him until just now; he wracks his memories but he is not like her, and has so few of them. _I'm not sure,_ he admits. All he knows of his Somebody is that he had befriended many children, and that the days were endless play, and that he hated the way his nose looked...

The Gambler, stronger and bolder as well as more human, has been living off the wolves that reside in the forest outside the castle.

_I like your method better,_ she adds, thoughtfully. _There is always too much leftover for me alone to eat. It's wasteful. This is much better._

He is pleased with himself for having done something right, for having pleased a superior, for having pleased _her_ -- for once he feels clever and interesting. When he catches a second fish for her, she applauds him. It causes a strange sensation, tight and excited inside, like he might glow.

They eat together and talk of things that are no longer important; she of her lord and he of the fall of the Dark City. Then it's as though a great tide carries the story from him, and he must also speak about Princess Aurora, and the Underdrome, and the Flurry of Dancing Flames. Throughout it all she listens and nods and speaks sympathetic words, occasionally surprised and impressed.

Perhaps, he is starting to think, something amazing has happened to him. He wraps his fingers tighter around the heart that started this adventure.

When they are done with stories, memories, and meals, she stands. _Thank you for sharing your time with me,_ she says, _and good luck to you. I hope you find what you're looking for._

He looks up at her, almost without understanding, until a sleeve brushes his upturned face, and then he jerks back. He's a fool. _Of course,_ he murmurs inanely. _You too._

Then she leaves, making her way into the now-clear forest. The storm has left it shimmering with wet, and she is surrounded in a halo of silver as she moves, a halo of everything he has ever had that hasn't belonged to someone else. His past, his will, his meager belongings, his heart...

His heart.

There is another hour, two hours of making up excuses not to leave this dreary night-world before he sets off after her, following barely-seen tracks. He cannot leave her yet... he has something for her.

.

**Your Highness,** he begins the letter, and then shakes his head, changes his mind, and tries instead, **Aurora,**

**I trust you'll remember me, although if you don't, I wouldn't be surprised. You certainly wouldn't recognize me if you saw me now. It's been many months since we met, and back then you had to write my letters for me. My fingers were bound-- but no more. A great many things have changed for me. You were the first one who believed that I might have been more than a simple monster, and I wanted you to know that your faith was not misplaced.**

**The heart that I treasured so dearly while I was with you is gone now. It began to turn pale, fading away, and one day I woke up and it was gone. I'll leave the why of that to greater minds than mine, but however it happened, and whatever the reason, the changes that began while it was still with me continue. Perhaps it is as my liege said, and it represents the connection between people. In either event, the two of you have given me so much more than he may ever know.**

**I (and my friend, more than my friend, who has decided to call herself Xaldyr in the fashion of the Numbered) grow more humanlike with each passing day -- standing straighter, working joints that had vanished. We have long ago taken off our suits and soon I expect we will be able to go among humans, walk through the village nearby, and no one will ever question that we are not like them.**

There, he thinks. That sounds perfect. His lips curl up in a smile, and for the first time in ages, he thinks no one could mistake his intentions in smiling. He smiles because he is happy.

**Thank you again for everything,** he adds. **Someday, Xaldyr and I will have to come to visit you again, and you can see for yourself the changes that you have brought about.**

**From one who is always in your debt...**

He signs his name.


End file.
